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A Revolutionary New Way to Watch TV Comes to the UK
Digital Recorders |
Just AnnouncedMon 17 Jan 2005

A revolutionary new way to watch TV launches today which may see viewers across the country throwing aside their remote controls and tuning into their favourite programmes through their computer.

blinkx TV is the first Internet search engine that allows you to search TV across news, sports and entertainment programming. blinkx TV makes both TV and radio programmes from 20 international broadcasters including the BBC, ITN and Sky News fully searchable on demand. Because blinkx captures and indexes the entire video stream directly from the television, consumers can get straight to the exact clip they want.

blinkx TV can be accessed at http://www.blinkx.tv and can be used by anyone without the need to subscribe or leave any personal details.

By bringing its revolutionary search capabilities to some of the most watched news and entertainment channels, blinkx allows consumers to find the exact point that consumers want to watch or listen to, thereby eliminating everything else that is not of interest, including advertisements. By entering a few words into the query box, consumers are automatically linked to the clip they're looking for - for example, entering "Kelly Holmes wins second medal" into the search box would take users to finish line of the 1500m race where the Olympian grabs another gold. Once archive content has been completed, users will also be able to watch famous moments from TV and film history for example entering the words "who shot JR" will bring up the famous Dallas clip.

In addition to offering consumers over 42,000 hours of video clips available on the Internet, Blinkx has also struck an agreement to search all Fox News Channel broadcasts. Having launched in the US three weeks ago, Blinkx TV offers an early glimpse of how people may one day find and view TV programmes. As satellite and cable operators offer an increasing choice of programming through video-on-demand, TV executives say improved navigation tools such as blinkx TV will be a key factor in determining whether or not people consume these services.

"Today's consumers deserve an easier way of finding video and audio content online," says blinkx co-founder Suranga Chandratillake . "Rich media, like video, is the next step in the evolution of search from Web to desktop to living room. Using our smart, contextual search, blinkx TV links users to relevant clips anywhere in the video stream, delivering video content straight from the television to the consumer's PC."

The ability to watch TV where and when you want to is something that consumers are showing an increasing demand for. Digital TV recording devices such as Tivo and Sky Plus are growing in popularity and in turn are changing the way we watch and access home entertainment. blinkx TV will offer now offer an new, innovative way of tuning into our favourite programmes - by simply logging onto the Internet.

"blinkx TV fills the gap between the explosion of rich media content and the growing consumer interest in harnessing it. At blinkx we've recognised consumer's needs and taken the search engine to a new level. Ground breaking automatic transcription technology which transcribes content straight from the cable box on the fly, or from video already stored on the web, together with advanced phonetic matching speech recognition technology, automates the process of searching TV clips for the first time," said Chandratillake.

About blinkx

blinkx, the smartest thing on your computer, is changing the way that people think about search technology.

Free-to-download, blinkx is a new search engine which automatically and intelligently links to relevant information anywhere and in any format: on the Web, in the news or on the desktop. Utilising blinkx, users are no longer limited to a traditional keyword search. Instead, blinkx automatically and implicitly conducts searches based on the content being view by each individual user.

blinkx is a privately held firm based in San Francisco and London. More information is available at www.blinkx.com.